Descension
by Michael Ivan
Summary: Commander John Shepard lives alone aboard the Normandy, and his horrific past eats away at him every day. He soon finds that may be able to find peace in one of his new associates.


INCIDENT REPORT

PROFILE OF COMMANDER JOHN SHEPARD

BATTLE ACCOUNT: AKUZE

* * *

Everywhere.

The sounds. The screams. The pain. Everywhere.

We were camping out when it attacked. That huge, disgusting worm. The Thresher Maw.

Running, screaming, and pain. A massive knot in my heart and a beating in my head. I jumped below the rubble of a small house, hoping to stay out of its sight and survive, when I heard him scream.

"Shepard!"

I heard his voice. My closest friend in the service. "Dave!", I shouted. "Where are you?"

A quick look around the corner, and I saw nothing. I couldn't see him. _Am I hearing things?_ I asked myself._ Did he run away? Is he already gone?_

_Am I too late?_

My eyes clenched shut. I could still hear gunfire. We were a small squad. I knew he was out there, fighting that hideous beast. He had to be. He was a soldier. He never gave up. I looked down at my leg, finally noticing the deep red gash through my thigh. I could see the blood oozing out. My hands went numb and I couldn't look at it for more than a few seconds. Then, his voice came back, and I didn't even need to process my pain.

"I'm right here, Shepard!" I looked across the road at another, identical building. He was lying on the ground on top of his rifle. He seemed okay. _Why does he need my help?_

Then I remembered my wound. _He_ was trying to help _me_.

He glanced around the corner of the building before making a run for me. He sat next to me, preparing a bandage for me. We either didn't come equipped with medi-gel, or we already ran out. I didn't ask at the time.

"You couldn't stay safe, could you, Shep?", he said as he tightened the bandage around my leg.

"Hey, that's not fair, I-" A distant roar interrupted me. Too far to matter. "I didn't feel it until I looked at it. I'm still trying not to see it."

"Ignoring your wounds won't make them go away. Facing it will give you strength." He began to ease up onto his knees. "Aw, fuck, I'm kidding. That thing is _nasty_. Don't look."

"That thing sounded far away. I think I can stand." I grabbed onto a ledge and pulled myself up. Dave looked off as a rescue shuttle approached. "Yeah, guess it _isn't_ as bad as it looks."

The doors to the rescue shuttle opened as it finally drew near. This nightmare was nearly over. I could go back to a hospital on a soft bed and, hopefully, try to forget my losses. I limped toward the ledge with Dave about ten feet behind me. A few soldiers pulled me onto the shuttle. I looked back towards him and shouted, "Come on, Dave! Let's get out of here!"

"Coming!", he said, more casual than I expected. He started to sprint. He was on the home stretch. Then, he stopped. "Wait, the ground's shaking..."

It took me little time to figure out what that meant. "No... Dave, get over here!"

He made his move. All he had time to do was prepare his legs for a sprint; A single, half-second motion that felt like a whole minute to me. Before he could even move, the house behind him erupted in a cloud of dirt and debris as the Thresher Maw shot from the ground beneath it. The monster stood unfazed. It was like there was nothing in its way. I looked down at the ground where Dave was. Half of his body was still there. Worse yet, he was still _alive_. He screamed my name.

"Shepard!"

I felt the shuttle rise and heard the door begin to close. I wanted to say no. I wanted them to stop the shuttle. The energy to say anything, though, just wan't there. I kept drifting farther and farther away, his desperate remains shrinking, smaller and smaller.

"_Shepard!_"

* * *

*THWACK*

A sudden sound awoke me from my daydreams. The datapad. I felt my surroundings gradually return to me, even though my eyes had been open the entire time.

"Sorry, Commander. Did I surprise you?"

At that, I realized I wasn't alone. It was the turian we picked up earlier from the Citadel. My mind shifted from missions passed to missions present. Searching for the rogue agent who was a threat to the galaxy. The vision on Eden Prime of that long-lost civilization. The beacon that led me on a goose-chase from one star system to another, searching for clues about the sentient machines that wiped those ancients out.

"Uh... Commander? You can _hear_ me, right?" He stood just barely through the doorway of my quarters. My hands promptly clasped together.

"Sorry. I'm just a bit lost in thought." I scraped the datapad from the floor. I didn't even know why I led myself into that memory trip. "You need something?"

"Oh, just figured we should have a proper introduction after you fished me out of Dr. Michel's office." He strode over, with almost a slight hunch to his back, and held out his hand towards me. "Garrus Vakarian. You already know what I do."

"Right. The C-Sec officer." I gripped his hand and gave him the usual business introduction. "You're quite the marksman."

"I try to be the _best_." His tone was pretty cocky, but he seemed rather nervous.

"That explains why you're here. Every mission is a reminder that the _best_ is _exactly_ what we need on this ship." I probably didn't help his nerves much.

"Well, from what I understand, you're pretty well-respected in the Alliance, enough that even most turians know about you and respect you," he said.

"Really, now?"

"Yeah. You're not exactly a stranger to us. Those odds you faced would get anybody on an extranet vid." I chuckled, looking over at the medals displayed on the wall. I had placed them there once I moved up the ranks to run the ship. Garrus started to relax a bit. He followed my gaze to the center; the Medal of Honor for Akuze. "_Did_ you get asked for interviews?"

"I sent messages. More controllable."

"I see." He sighed, turning his gaze down towards the floor. "To be honest, sir, I'm pretty honored to be here right now. I wasn't sure if it'd be a good idea to even come in."

"You can drop titles," I replied, turning to him as I said it. "I have a first name for a reason. I'd like people to use it."

"Oh. Sorry, John." He looked off to the side and started fumbling with his talons.

"What history do you have with combat?"

"Oh, not much, really," he said, his confidence rising up. "Just C-Sec officer training, some target practice back home, and some of the most rigorous Spectre training courses the Citadel has to offer. All measly, spare-time stuff."

"Seriously?" I couldn't believe he had that kind of experience. "_Spectre_ training?"

He turned around and leaned on the nearby bulkhead. "Didn't work out in the end. I wasn't too thrilled at the idea of being with Special Tactics, anyways. Well..." He gazed out of the window, at the stars, re-thinking his statement. "C-Sec really isn't much better. It's a lot more boring, and red tape covers the Citadel like wrapping paper, but at least C-Sec doesn't put me in the position to cause all of that."

"You're not one for bureaucracy?"

"No. Never. All politicians really ever do is solve one problem by creating even more, and C-Sec always needs to clean up the messes they leave behind."

"Seems inescapable, then." I brushed the back of my neck and looked over to him.

"Well, I haven't found _too _many issues on the Normandy, yet," he said as he pushed off of the wall. "Trust me. I've looked." He shot what might have been a smirk at me as he left through the door. Hopefully, that meant he was joking. I sat down at my desk and quickly booted up my private terminal to check my files.

I needed to make sure he couldn't find anything... _too _unprofessional.

* * *

The next day, the Normandy reached its destination; The planet of Therum.

We had been given a lead by the Council that an asari researcher named Dr. Liara T'Soni was participating in an archaeological dig, searching for ancient Prothean relics. She's the daughter of Matriarch Benezia, a highly-respected asari. On the Citadel, a quarian named Tali presented evidence that Benezia was working with Saren.

As we neared the planet's surface, I took Garrus and Tali into the cargo bay to board the Mako, our all-terrain vehicle. "Commander, we're picking up some pretty strong geth signatures in the area," our pilot announced. "There's also a _really_ strong signal coming from a mine. Call it a hunch, but I _think_ that's where we should be looking."

"Thanks, Joker," I replied as I climbed into the Mako. Garrus boarded after me, followed by Tali. "We're ready. Drop us in."

The rover fell from the cargo bay of the ship, landing with a thud on the surface of Therum. Immediately noticeable were the glowing lava pools that spit red torrents into the air. Noticeable shortly afterward was the presence of geth.

We ran the Mako along paths, through valleys, and past sea after sea of lava. The geth were relentless, and the occasional armature would slow out path, but not for terribly long. Hours passed and we began to grow tired. I decided to hand the wheel to Garrus.

"Watch and learn, Commander."

As soon as he took the wheel, the Mako revved, and sped forward. "Do you have a driver's license for this thing?", I said. I nearly had to shout over the noise of the vehicle.

He turned away from the monitor to face me. "A what, now?" A geth drop-ship shot an armature onto the ground in front of us, and at nearly 80 MPH, the Mako slammed into it. Tali nearly hit her console. Once the rover slowed to a halt, everyone was glaring at the driver. Garrus turned back to his monitor and started slowly back it off of the wreck. "I blame the Mako. Terrible handling. Humans don't know how to build these things."

"Right. Let's keep going."

We continued along the path towards the signal, facing an increasing amount of geth resistance. Most of them got flattened by the rover, thanks to our wonderful driver. I think he forgot that it was _his_ job to repair the thing afterwards.

The resistance wasn't terrible. It was nothing we couldn't handle. A few times, we needed to leave the rover to open a gate along the way, but it wasn't a whole lot of trouble. Eventually, we reached the source of the signal; Liara T'Soni's archaeological dig.

"There it is," Garrus remarked. "I wonder what we'll find?"

"Hopefully, Dr. T'Soni's in there, and she'll give us some answers about that recording." I angled my head up to look at the airlock door. "If her mother's involved in all of this, and the geth are trying to take her, this could be an... interesting situation."

Bracing ourselves for continued geth resistance, we climbed up the ramp to the vault-like door to the dig. A tremor shook as we ascended the walkway. We unsealed the door ahead of us, entered the chamber, and let it seal shut behind us. While we waited for the airlock to complete the filtration process, I wondered to myself exactly _what_ Dr. T'Soni was searching for.


End file.
